Are we there yet?

This week we are celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.  In that speech MLK Jr. spoke of a promised land of racial equality.  After more than 70 years of civil rights struggle and fifty years since the speech, the question “are we there yet?” is on many people’s mind.  The recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act seems to make the assertion that we have already been there for a while now.  The Supreme Court seems to say that the protections that have been written into our laws since the sixties, with the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Legislation and the Voting Rights Act, are less relevant anymore because our society has evolved and we have turned the page on the ugliness of the days of segregation.  In essence, the Supreme Court is making the statement that we are “there”.  So where are we? 

The Preacher in his speech fifty years back spoke of how the nation has defaulted on its promissory note of equality for all people.  He spoke eloquently of his dream of a society in which one day his four black children would hold hands with white children and walk the streets of Mississippi.  And he spoke of his dream of a society that will one day judge its citizens by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.  This speech was the seminal point in our march towards a society which could turn the page on its ugly history of racism and discrimination.  Many of us have a definition of “there”, as the society that Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed about.

By the definitions espoused by MLK Jr., and for many minorities in our society, we have indeed arrived there.  We have to look no further than the White House for proof.  The President, a black man, ran against two white opponents in consecutive elections and was elected by the country by overwhelming majority.  The country judged the man by the content of his character and the strength of his vision and not by the color of his skin and made the determination that he was the better man.  If MLK Jr. was alive today, he would be pleased with seeing a person of color sitting in the Oval Office.  While the black President is one powerful symbol of the progress we have made, it is not just an isolated symbol of progress.  We have today, many blacks and other minorities in several important positions of power and influence holding elected offices, leading major corporations and so on.  The richest woman in the television world and all of entertainment is a black woman, who gets recognized the world over by just her first name Oprah.  There cannot be a bigger symbol of economic progress that some in the black community have made in the last fifty years.

But still we are all not certain that we have arrived “there”.  Many of us still believe that there is work to be done and the struggle that was started more than fifty years ago has to be continuous and ongoing.  The doubters are justified in their feeling.  Not too long ago, a black teenager was murdered in Florida only because of the color of his skin and he looked suspicious because of that.  The nation erupted into a soul searching exercise of what it meant, whether the murder harkened us back to the days of 1955 when Emmitt Till was murdered in a back alley in Mississippi because of the color of his skin.  The fact that an isolated murder in the streets of Florida could evoke such emotions is proof that we are not comfortable that we have put the past of our racial history behind us.    Our feeling of inequality of the races is backed by several other stats – high rates of incarceration of young black men and women; high rate of single family households in the black community; national income averages among the black population that is lower than other racial groups; infant mortality rates among black population that is higher than other groups.  The bleak stats can go on for multiple pages.  The fact that one ethnic group is at such a disproportionate disadvantage has to be because of a reason.  And it is natural to say that it is because of racism and bigotry in our society and because we haven’t arrived at a place where the playing field is level. One cannot blame anybody for such skepticism.

There is a disproportionate percentage of the black population that is at a disadvantage today.  It is not because there is still widespread institutional racism.  It is because there haven’t been adequate well executed policies that ensured that the black community was given the lift that it needed.  The black community was in an incredibly deep hole when the country’s collective conscience recognized the injustice and inequality perpetrated on them.  We have to recognize that the hole was being dug for two hundred prior years.  We needed all the heavy lifting we could by passing of laws with enough teeth, framing of policies with long term effects, commitment of resources lasting multiple generations, and flawless execution across multiple administrations to ensure that segments of population that was deep down in the hole were given the buoyancy needed to get the lift and take off.  In the last several decades, we have waned in our support for economic policies that will provide the necessary economic lift.  And consequently large segments of the black community are trapped in the endless cycle of unemployment, poverty and crime.

The answer to the question “Are we there yet?” is not that straightforward anymore.  Clearly the train left the station five decades back.  Many bogies have already arrived “there” and the President, Oprah and the countless black men and black women in various strata of society are shining examples of the successful journey.  But several bogies of the train also got unhitched along the way.  And these bogies are mired in the tracks of unemployment, poverty, violence and incarceration and for them the economic deprivation of today is no different than the social deprivation of fifty years back and their destination looks beyond reach.

Shriram's road trip through the US heartland

In early August, my friend and colleague Shriram, who lives in Cincinnati, OH took a fifteen day motorcycle trip through the heartland of USA.  His road trip, in his Suzuki motorcycle, that covered a total of 4,300 miles and consumed a total of 110 galls of gas, took him through Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas to Colorado and he travelled back to Cincinnati via the Rocky Mountains, Yellow Stone National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Minneapolis and Chicago.  Shriram put together a wonderful photo essay of his journey that captures beautifully the places he visited, the people he met and the experiences he had.  It is a very engaging photo essay and you can find it in Youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-EWahHzZo4)

While I was struck by the sheer adventurous nature of Shriram’s undertaking, I was more impressed with the stories that Shriram shared with me about the many people he met and befriended along the way.  These are strangers he ran into because of several reasons – because he was lost, because he ran out of gas and was stuck in the middle of a highway between distant cities , because he hooked up a conversation with someone in a gas station or in a restaurant, or just because he stopped and talked to someone.  The strangers extended their generosity, their friendship, their hospitality and the sheer warmth of heart to a fellow human being exploring the country.  These stories are incredible because they look improbable in this modern day and age.

While driving through Goodland, Kansas, Shriram saw a gentle looking middle aged woman walking on the road, and he stopped his motorcycle and said hello to her.  Lorma and Shriram became instant friends.  Soon Shriram found himself in Lorma’s house greeting her eighty year old mother and exchanging stories from his Indian background.  The evening turned into a two day stay in their house with shared cooking experiences, horse back rides and so on and a lifelong friendship that I am sure will endure.

And while crossing Kansas, Shriram ran out of gas and was stuck in the freeway.  Suddenly a stranger appeared from nowhere, pulled a gas can out his truck and filled up Shriram’s motorcycle.  The stranger turned to be a 30 year old transplant from Dayton, OH to somewhere in the middle of Kansas.  Gerald refused to accept any money for the gas, told Shriram that it is his duty and obligation to help another human being and the help was not rendered for money.  Last week, Gerald was visiting his family in Dayton and he made sure that he visited Shriram in Cincinnati before returning back to Kansas. 

On his return leg, somewhere between Rocky Mountains and Yellow Stone, Shriram was filling gas, when a stranger walked over to chat.  It turned out that the stranger was going to a camp that was gathering for a fund raiser to raise money for some veteran’s cause.  Soon, Shriram found himself following this stranger in his Jeep through some unpaved gravel roads off the main highway.  Shriram had no idea where he was and was scared whether he was doing the right thing and doubts formed in his head as to his safety.  Suddenly the stranger stopped his Jeep, and got out of the car and approached the trailing Shriram to inquire whether the dust that his car was kicking up was bothering him.  And if so, he wanted Shriram to lead the trail to the camp site.  They soon were in a camp ground with hundreds of people talking about their road trip, sharing drinks and dancing through the night.

We live in a world today where when we hear about such acts of generosity, and such friendships extended, they look improbable.  I don’t think we can blame us for that.  After all we are inundated by stories like that of the killing of Trayvon Martin by a George Zimmerman, because Trayvon was black and was in the “wrong neighborhood”; or the story of the killing of a student from Australia in the campus of Oklahoma University by three teenagers because they were looking for a cheap thrill; or the abduction of three teenage girls in the streets of Cleveland by a sex addicted school bus driver and holding them in captivity for more than a decade.  When all that we hear are these stories, it is only natural for us to believe that there is more evil than good among us. We ingrain our children from a very young age to be weary and vigilant of any strangers.  We reinforce such beliefs at every turn, for example we have successfully turned a festival like Halloween into an occasion to be suspicious of the generosity of our neighbors. And we get even more preoccupied with arming us even more with concealed weapons or automatic weapons that can fire thirty bullets in a minute so that we can protect ourselves from each other.

Shriram’s journey through the heartland of America was an exercise in sheer adventure and exploration and a desire to get to know better the country he has adopted.  I am so happy he did it and he shared his stories with me.  But for me, his stories are a reinforcement of my belief that we still live in a society where there is more good than we know or recognize.  I hope I have one day a chance to go on an expedition like what Shriram did and experience such goodness.  And I hope all of you have the same opportunity.

Thank you Shriram for doing the road trip and sharing your stories.

Krishnaji - A Short Story

“I will make dinner early today and I want you all to finish your dinner by 7:00 PM”, my mother announced tersely.  She was looking forward to attending the reading of the sacred book of Ramayana and storytelling by Krishnaji, a Guru visiting my town.  Krishnaji will be in town for the next several weeks.  I already knew the routine.  Mother would attend the story telling sessions that go late into the evening.  Hurrying home before her five children went to bed, she would be anxious to share the words of wisdom that the eloquent Guru had told the gathering.  The Guru was waft in weaving the stories of Gods, demi Gods, and ways of life into an entertaining rendition that captivates the faithful devotee as well as the casual observer.

I accompanied my mother on a few occasions.  I was impressed with the fluency of Krishnaji in Tamil and English.  He would in one continuous swoop quote the Bible, Bagavad Gita (the holy scripture of a Hindu) and a parable of life and weave that into the story of the life of Rama that formed the context of his rendition. 

His given name was Krishna.  But his followers would call him Krishnaji, adding the “ji” at the end as a sign of respect and reverence and an acknowledgement of his exalted soul.  Krishnaji was in his early thirties, but he looked much older than his age.  May be it was the way he dressed, a draping of a single sheet of white cotton sheet, called dothi, around his waist, a smaller piece of white cloth, more like a towel, across his bare chest made the rest of his clothing.  He had a long beard.  His long hair was rolled into a bulb that was held together with a rubber band.  As what an ascetic should wear, he had the white sacred ash smeared across his forehead and over his chest and hands.  He would close his eyes often, as if in deep trance, or as if he was in communication with God.  His face and body radiated serenity.  He had a retinue of disciples, hanging to his every word and the deference and obsequiousness of his followers could be seen from a distance.

No wonder my mother was taken by Krishnaji.  She is easily taken by anyone who could quote the scriptures or has a word of wisdom and it was no surprise that by the second week she was so enamored by Krishnaji, that it became the only topic of conversation at the dinner table and the evening hours.  In the beginning, I would silently suffer my mother repeating Krishnaji’s lessons on ways of life.  Over time I realized my mother was starting to feel that my ways of life as a 16 year old were not in line with Krishnaji’s various pronouncements.  My silence soon led to mild demurs and then to loud vocal protests and open squabbles with my mother.  I would soon start criticizing Krishnaji on things he would say about his pronouncement that a man has to marry within his caste.  I was a progressive, believing in the oneness of human beings, and with little tolerance for divisions across caste, religion, and the myriad other clans and sub-clans that Indians seem to divide themselves into.

Krishnaji formed a large legion of followers in my town.  He would visit my town several times in an year and the crowds grew bigger with each such visit.  On one of those visits, a young woman, half his age and of a lower cast, approached Krishnaji and asked if she could join his retinue and achieve religious salvation through service to him.  Krishnaji hardly even raised his eye from the scripture he was reading and asked one of his main devotees to handle the matter.  Soon enough, the damsel was part of Krishnaji’s retinue.

One early morning, Krishnaji opened his eyes after a long period of meditation and caught sight of the damsel returning to his ashram after a bath in a nearby river.  The wet sari was clinging to her skin, like an onion skin to a wet surface, and the contours of her shapely body were well amplified.  She almost looked naked.  Krishnaji couldn’t pull away from the allure of the roundness of her supple breasts, her narrow waist and her shapely buttocks, that were clearly visible in the early light of the dawn.  The sight of the attractive woman stirred something deep within Krishnaji, as he had never experienced before.  He felt a pang of shock jolting through his loins.  From that day onwards, Krishnaji would open his eyes from his meditation when the damsel would come back from her bath in the river.  It wasn’t long before Krishnaji married the damsel.

Word reached my town that Krishnaji married someone of lower caste by falling in love with a woman, as opposed to an arranged marriage, the worst way a man can bring shame to his family.  Within a few months of his marriage, Krishnaji made his way back to my town to profess his lessons of life.  The crowd this time was much thinner.  And my mother pretended as if she didn’t know Krishnaji was in town.

God's Own Country

On my way back from my recent visit to Hyderabad, I travelled via my home town Trivandrum, a city nestled at the southern tip of India between the Arabian Sea to the West and the Ponmudi Mountain to the East, the trailing end of the mountain ranges of the Western Ghat.  As the plane made its approach to the airport, I looked out the window and was stuck by the lush greenery, almost like a green carpet, that capped the ground.  The absence of sky scraper office buildings and multi story apartment buildings, that dot the sky lines of the other burgeoning metropolis in India like Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, are an instant give away that Trivandrum and the State of Kerala is yet to arrive as a participant in the economic boom that is engulfing the rest of India.

It was late May and the monsoon season was just setting in.  I was greeted by a torrent of rain, the early rains of a month long season of non-stop rain,  that is so essential to the myriads of daily essentials, power generation through the many water powered electricity generating stations, the agrarian economy that still forms the backbone of this state.  The rainy season, while annoying due to the attendant traffic hurdles it creates, is one of the most beautiful seasons in Kerala. 

Trivandrum, which is situated eight degrees north of the Equator, is as tropical as it can get.  The temperature hovers in the thirties (degress centigrade) throughout the year, with occasionally crossing into the forties in peak summer.  The sun rises at 6:00 AM and sets at 6:00 PM.  There are only two seasons, hot and hotter.

The rainy season marks the end of the oppressive four month long summer that stretches from early February through late May.  The air was thick from the steam that emanates from the parched ground as the first rains hit the ground and the smell that emanates from the ground as the early droplets cool the ground feels more like an aroma to the familiar nostrils.  The taxi carried me through the winding streets and alleys, which unfortunately still forms the main thoroughfare between the airport and the other population centers of the city.  The roads were full of pot holes and there were puddles of water filling those holes.  As the rains intensity, it is going to wash off more of the asphalt and concrete and the holes will only get bigger.  In spite of the rain, the roads were filled with people unconcerned about the traffic or the dirty water that could drench them when a speeding automobile eventually fails to navigate around a pothole. I was filled with nostalgia of my childhood; of the years when, Raju, my brother, and I would come home from school fully drenched with wet note books and text books in hand and our mother screaming at us for not taking an umbrella with us.

The rain continued non-stop into the evening hours.  As I sat by the window listening to the sound of the rain, I could hear in the distance from someone’s radio, a maudlin movie song, an evergreen melody from yester years, that tells the story of a forlorn love or a broken heart. The sound of rain drops that fall on the tin awnings that decorate every house, or the sprawling plantain leaves of the banana plants and the yam leaves that seem to be everywhere, at first blush sounds like a cacophony of sound.  But you listen closely and you get the feeling that there is a rhythmic beat to the rain falling.  You could almost pick up a five beat cycle, or an eight beat cycle that an Indian is so familiar with in their music.  It is as if nature is erupting in a musical ecstasy to celebrate the arrival of the varied plant and insect life that is going to spring once the rain stops.

The admen for the State have coined the phrase that Kerala is “God’s Own Country” and it greets you everywhere in billboards as you drive around.  When I drove through the city, I felt a sense of sadness that my favorite town has not yet joined the ranks of the modern world, but after reflecting on it in the confines of my parents home, may be this is indeed God’s own country and He wants this place to be bucolic and left pristine.

Honey should we buy the 52” LCD TV?

The day after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States held a news conference.  The nation was rattled by the horrific events of the previous day and there was widespread desire to contribute to the national healing that had to take place.  One of the reporters, echoing precisely the question the country had in its collective mind, asked the question: “Mr. President, what do you want the citizens of the country to do now?”.  The President without any hesitation answered: “I want everyone to go to the malls and shop”.  The President was pilloried in some quarters for recommending such a selfish act of shopping and not calling the country to a collective sense of purpose. 

Consumption and material possession evokes mixed feelings in most people.  I believe the dichotomy to the act of shopping reflects a more fundamental ambivalence we have to the concept of material possession.  We are often conditioned in our thinking about material possession by our subscription to certain moral values and economic principles.  I believe there is a third dimension to the question of material possession that should influence our decision.  Before I expound on this dimension, let us take a closer look at how most of us are conditioned in our ambivalence by our moral values and our understanding of economic theories.

Many people look to the scriptures to get a moral guidance on basic every day topics.  However, the scriptures have conflicting advice on this topic.  Let us take Timothy 6:8 “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that”.  Here the Bible sides with frugality and espouses consuming only what is needed for subsistence.  But let us turn the page and look at Matthew 6:31 and it says “But seek thee first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” which could be interpreted to say you seek God, material possessions will come to you in plenty.  Here possession in itself is not castigated. 

I have to say this ambivalence to material possession is not limited to the Christian scriptures.  I am of the Hindu faith.  In the Hindu spiritual books, we have the same conflicting guidance.  At various times, austerity is praised.  And at other times we are also taught that God’s blessing is needed for one to acquire wealth and material possessions.  We even have a God, in our pantheon of Gods, who you propitiate to acquire wealth.  You often see the wealthier people seeking this God’s blessing with even more vigor.

Turning from the spiritual to the economics, there are two schools of thoughts with regards to consumption.  When the economic times are good, I have seen many a TV shows where the pop economists rail about the virtue of Japanese and other eastern cultures where the per capita savings is very high.  The implied message from these economists often is that US is living way beyond its means and consumption is not healthy for the national economy.  But when there is a down turn in the economy and the consumers tighten their wallets, the same economists seek a stimulus package to encourage consumer spending.  I am no economist, and so are majority of the population, but the conflicting positions are confusing to say the least.

So what should an ordinary person, the Joe six-pack, do?  When you have to make a decision about that 52” TV, or the sun room extension to your house, or to buy the high tech Video game console, is there another way of viewing this decision?  I think the answer is yes.

This third view is to look at in the larger context of the meaning of life.  After all we have one life to live and we are all searching for the core of life called happiness.  And a measure of happiness is the strength and depth of bond that you form with your loved ones and friends.  The fabric of bond is knitted over your lifetime by increasing the opportunities to spend time together and sharing common experiences. In this modern world, where our time is fissured into so many activities, all of us have an obligation to increase the opportunities where you can spend the time together and weave that knit of bonding tighter. 

The 52” TV could be the catalyst for you to sit with your son and enjoy a football game.  Or the week long vacation in a cabin in the wilderness of Pocono Mountains could be the perfect setting for you, your spouse and children to read a book together and tell each other what it means to each of you.  Such moments of intimacy, as the TV commercial says, are priceless.

So while we have many guideposts in our life and we live our life to fit within these guideposts, it would serve you well once in a while to look at your pedestrian life decisions in a larger context.  When you look back 10 or 20 years and ruminate on the memories, you may be wondering why I didn’t do it more often.

Value of beauty

One day recently, I opened the business section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, my hometown newspaper, and saw a news item titled “Job hunters seek leg up by having plastic surgery”. The article was reporting on a recent trend among the 50 something to resort to plastic surgery to look young and remove any negatives of being an older person in the job market.  The article quoted several job seekers and plastic surgeons to indicate that a nip and tuck, and Botox go a long way to wash away the girth and wrinkles from aging.  One quote in particular stood out ‘The seasoned experts, once pictured in ads with lots of wrinkles, have been replaced by young go-getters with multiple degrees and the appearance of boundless energy.”

As a 50 something myself, the article was unsettling to say the least.  I was thinking what we have come to as a society.  I started to question whether it is the vigor or the beauty that is more important to a society.

We all know that the head turns are reserved only for the beautiful looking people.  Marilyn Monroe is known all around the world not for her accomplishments, but because of her buxom body in her pin up posters.  Few years back an actress from India, named Ash Rai, was being referred to as the most beautiful woman in the world.  You couldn’t get a more absolute statement than that “the most beautiful woman in the world”.  It is as if there is some kind of meter or scale and one can measure one’s beauty in a quantitative scale and score them.  I wish I knew where I can get that scale.

So if you are a non-beautiful looking person or like me, downright ugly looking, here is my advice.  Take heart in what Benjamin Franklin said “Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion”.  Other commonly known phrases “But beauty is only skin deep” mean the same.  But the most important phrase that I like is “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.  It is up to you to project what you want about you to the beholder. 

Let us say we are in a party and we strike up a conversation with few people.  One is young and beautiful and the other slightly older and with a few wrinkles.  I bet you are going to turn to the young one first. But let us say you soon realize she is just an empty head with not a whole lot to add to the conversation.  However, the one with some wrinkles is entertaining, lucid and has a great sense of humor.  You are going to quickly forget the beauty and look at what the person has to offer to you.

This fact applies to every situation in life.  Beauty is truly skin deep.  It is what is in your head that matters most.  So the not so young ones among us, you don’t have to resort to the nip and tuck.  Just sharpen your tongue and your wit and you can overcome the disadvantages of the wrinkles.

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008.  He ran on a message of Hope.  I actively volunteered on his campaign and I was touched by the message of Hope that he so eloquently articulated and ran on.  I was moved to write an essay about what Hope meant to me.  Here is my essay.

What is Hope?  Before I answer that, let us see what Hope has done for us.  Hope, a four letter word of the English lexicon, has been the clarion call that has shaped the political evolution of humanities from time immemorial. 

In 1905, when a 5 foot 2inch Indian barrister, practicing law in South Africa, was victimized by the laws of racial segregation and inequality perpetrated by the British colonialists, he realized that the same system was subjugating his own countrymen in his motherland.  He traveled back to India and gave hope to his countrymen to fight for a country free from the shame of subjugation and exploitation by their occupiers.  His people, who would call him Mahatma which means noble soul, rallied around his message of hope to free them from the shackles of oppression and the depravity of colonialism. 

A few decades later, a Baptist minister from Georgia, used again the message of hope to rally a nation to see the inequities and ugliness of racial segregation.  He shared with the nation his dream and hope for a day, when a person would be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.  A nation, founded on the principles of equality and liberty, and only too eager to recoil from the blot on its collective psyche, rallied again to the message of hope and passed landmark civil rights laws to restate its belief of equality of all its citizens.

And then recently, a man who was imprisoned for 24 years in his native land of South Africa, used his message of hope to bring his captors to their knees and disband an oppressive regime of Apartheid.  His message of hope not only rung loud with his fellow countrymen, but across all of humanity.  Nations across the world shunned the government of his captors and crippled their ability to continue their barbarity.

So what is so powerful about Hope that it can move humanities, an entire nation and sometimes the entire world?  All human beings at their core are romanticists and dreamers.  They aspire for circumstances and opportunities beyond what they endure or enjoy as the circumstance may be.  And Hope is that innate spirit in every human being that makes them work for a better tomorrow. 

Hope is not limited to just political aspirations.  Hope plays a role in our every day life as well.  A single mother, on a shoe string budget, when she struggles to feed her children, or to house them or to educate them, finds the energy to keep going only because she hopes for a better future for her children.  Hope of a disease free life is what gives strength to a cancer patient to withstand the ravages of radiation treatment or chemo therapy.  Hope in our scientists ability to use stem cell technology to find cures for genetic disorders, is what encourages a mother to carry a fetus to term even with the knowledge that the child could be severely autistic. 

And hope plays a role, when a community reeling with the effects of drugs and violence, comes together and fights for reclaiming their streets and neighborhoods, and makes it a safe environment for raising their next generation.  A nation, when it reels under the effects of lost jobs, lowering wages, disappearing factories, finds its resilience in the hope that this time will pass and a better day will emerge. 

And it was again that message of hope that we saw played out right in front of our eyes these last eighteen months.  When an unknown senator from the State of Illinois, pointed out that we don’t have to invade a country that did not attack us for us to feel safe;  that we don’t have to be suspicious of each other to the extend that we have to wire tap our own citizens to feel safe; that we don’t have to suspend some of the fundamental essence of our constitution to feel safe; that we don’t have to forgo the decency of our humanity and our abhorrence to torture to feel safe; that we don’t have to be scared into a constant state of fear to feel safe.  That thoughtful senator instead challenged us to have the audacity to hope for the promised land that the preacher said we could have, the promised land where the decision to spill American blood will not be made callously; the promised land where the constitution will be held sacred again; the promised land where all children will have a shot at the American dream through access to education; the promised land where all its citizens can have comfort in the knowledge that medical care is accessible and affordable; the promised land where we know that we will leave behind a planet that is better than the one we inherited.

It was the promise of hope that moved the nation to elect that man, whose ancestors had survived the gallows of ships of slavery, to the White House and declare to the world “Yes, We Can”.

So hope is a four letter word, but I don’t cringe when I hear it, but a smile creases my face.